Food Trucks

10/19/2014

It started with a failed New Orleans trip: the idea to explore East Austin as if we had a whole vacation-like, open-ended, relaxing day to do so.

We started at Jo's on South Congress with coffee outside around 10:45am. Gorgeous day. Who knew so many people would want their pictures taken there next to the wall of Guero's.

Yes, none of this is East Austin, but we had to hit Tesoros first for sugar skull molds for Día de los Muertos. No small molds. I refrain from purchasing hand-embroidered Peruvian throw pillows and some luscious colorful hand-tooled Paraguayan leather purses and wallets.

Then it was time for Eco-Wise, as I was thinking a validation stamp there would help with parking. I now have some new gloves and earth-friendly mosquito extermination things. I had to get the stamp at Vulcan Video. Where I purchased two bottled waters.

The loose plan was to then catch Rich Harney at Whip In, as I need to chat with him about a House Concert, but, in the end, the lure of a breakfast taco at one of Melissa's favorite places was just too strong. Whip In must wait.

Now we head to East Austin to find that food truck: Veracruz All Natural. Per usual when I go somewhere new (for me) with Melissa, I am wondering where this place has been all my life. The fish taco is the best I have ever had.

Fish tacos are so often so disappointing: the fish is not seasoned enough; the fish (usually tilapia) is frequently dried out. There also is usually very insufficient shredded cabbage and sauce to make it anything special. Not so here. It was a huge taco and dripping with juicy stuff and spicy sauce. Thus, there are no pictures.

Next, we make our way down the street, with the idea to check out Big Red Sun and a book store Melissa has been wanting to visit.

En route, there are many lovely things to enjoy. Like the Chucky piñata here as an option for your next birthday party.

Big Red Sun, we soon learn, is not open on Sundays. Or Saturdays. I lust over the large white planters anyway. We discuss who can make such a thing for me for under $50.

We continue, walking, until almost at I-35, and then there it is. A real live book store. Farewell Books.

I am agog. First at the styling of the place.

The display of all this vinyl (Nina Simone!) looks remarkably like an art installation I saw at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in April 2012.

Then I am agog at the books themselves.

Who on earth carries a library copy, you know, with that crinkly plastic cover, of a novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet?

"Curated" is too precious and overused a word these days perhaps, but these books. They are intensely curated for the selection and display here. My heart beats faster, and I cannot resist. There she is: Simone de Beauvoir, subject of my senior honors thesis in French. And there too, perfect counterpoint, is André Malraux (in English). Simone is/was a profoundly influential feminist philosopher. Malraux -- subject of my junior honors thesis in French (much of which was written in the library at the Centre Georges Pompidou in the 80s) -- is a well-known misogynist. Exquisite. I buy them both.

Time to stop and rest with coffee.

We have so much time after all before the 5:30pm movie at Violet Crown (a documentary).

Someone dressed very well for our East Austin afternoon. And it was not I.

The lush plantings in front of a building that used to be Big Red Sun (I think) beckons, and we leave to ogle those plants on the walk back to the car.

We also find a lovely slice of a chuck of a pecan tree with a striking grain. It is just sitting on the street, in a pile of old electronics and wires and cords, for the taking.

In our final moment on Cesar Chavez before turning toward the car, I learn that TACOS GRINGAS means tacos with lettuce and tomato.

It's now a good time to head to Violet Crown. That is, it is time to make sure there is time to have an adult beverage before the movie.

Violet Crown is now "super-sizing" the libations into special movie-length libations. For wine the super-size is a "double pour." I may have opted for that.

And so ended the 5- or 6-hour day of East Austin that started on South Congress and allowed us only to make about a 5-block stretch of Cesar Chavez. It ended with popcorn and red wine for Art and Craft. And plans for another East Austin day.

07/01/2013

Around Jaures metro stop...around the quais and stairways to one of the bridges up and over the Canal St. Martin.

"Jazz brunch" at Le Reservoir this morning was forgettable. When asked a week ago when reserving whether I wanted the 11:30 am or 4:30 pm seating, I figured that meant the music would have two sets too. Silly. Getting there for 11:30 meant waiting an hour for the opening act...nice enough - not jazz by any means - and then finding out -- when I decided to bail because it was a beautiful day and this was lame -- that the music advertised for the brunch that day and the reason I did this in the first place, Soul Legend, would be at 2:30 pm. No need to stay inside on a beautiful day.

Thank goodness later on, after an adrenal-system boosting nap back in the studio, I stumbled on Le Camion Qui Fume's site when I was looking for Tombées du Camion, the darling store with its vintage wares displayed at the Saturday market in Place des Abbesses.

Back in David Lebovitz's writing about these burgers and this truck...I recall something about long lines of devoted groupies. Le Camion Qui Fume (literally "the truck that smokes") is Paris's first high-end food food truck. It took a while to convince the French public that a burger could be this good, and could be served this deliciously from a truck driving around Paris. The convincing is all done now.

With Quai de Valmy, what the web site says is the site for the truck at 19-21h today, just a 4-stop metro ride away, and some edgy art center, Point Ephemere, being nearby for eating the burger and drinking some boisson, this was a no-brainer for the dinner plan.

The very funky Point Ephemere: it photographs better than it looks in real life.

Like Franklin Barebecue in Austin, Texas, the Camion has stated hours for wherever they may be on a certain day, but when they run out of food, they are done for the day.

A burger is 8 euros. A burger and side is 10 euros. Include the cheap beer I got at the nearby funky venue of Point Ephemere, and the side of coleslaw I ordered at the Camion just to try it, and this was all of 14 euros thereabouts.

The Camion Qui Fume Drill.

Here are the steps to getting, enjoying, and savoring this burger. (Before leaving home though, bring more napkins.)

Stand in line.

Place order. This requires you to pick one out of the specialty burger items on the menu. I picked "barbeque." Here is the entire menu from the site:

Once another paper receipt is generated with your number by a little machine connected to the order-taker guy's iPad, go stand in another line to wait for your number to be called once your perfectly cooked dripping juicy burger and side are delivered to you in a brown paper bag.

While waiting, enjoy listening to the music in the sound system over the nice speakers embedded in the truck's awning. I heard while around there AC/DC, Joan Jett, and Shooting Holes by Twin Shadow.

Scurry away with brown paper bag and find a someplace to sit.

Take burger out carefully. Observe its heft. It is really heavy. There is a lot of meat in this burger. And it is drippy juicy. I did not know a burger could emit so much in the way of savory sauce-like meaty juiciness. I cannot believe it is only 8 euros. There is a five-burger limit per person (in case you are taking away for friends back at the office--I cannot even imagine trying to eat this more than a few minutes after it is made).

Notice how the well-formed thick bacon is critical to this burger. Note the big chunk of it teasingly hanging out the side here. It is really thick. Like chewy savory pork fat thickness. [It is, in many ways, like that spectaular cured ham that Melvin's Deli Comfort over in Austin serves on another luscious gooey sandwich, that croque monsieur, which also resulted in a lot of finger-licking during a taste teste.]

Enjoy burger while sitting on metal rail thing along a (not-so-pretty as other stretches) stretch of the Canal St. Martin.

Start planning the upcoming week's eating around when the truck will be next.

Take long walk to redress some of what you have just inhaled. (My long walk included checking out the peniches - or house boats, parked along the quais of the Canal St. Martin.)

I walk all the way back to the Montmartre 'hood. [Note: Do not take this walk that tracks the Line 2 metro from Jaures to Anvers at night (the "Barbes" quartier). And this is not to say that I commend anyone to do this walk at any time. It's not too scenic but for the gorgeous metro line that is above ground here and the recently refurbished Luxor movie theatre.]

There is something to be said for Sundays in Paris when the day gets off to a really slow start, builds up to people everyone on the terraces, kids playing, and very little is open.

I am glad I had to change that return date back to Austin: I have one more Sunday in Paris before heading home.